Mill eor grinding corn in the cob



AMORY FISHER, or TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA.

MILL FORGRI-NDING coRN- IN THE 0013.

Specification of Iletters IEatent 1 \To..5,26 6 datedAugust 28, 184?.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, AMORY FISHER, of

Tuscaloosa, in the State of Alabama, have.

invented certain improvements in the Manner of Constructing the Machineor Mill for Grinding Corn in the Ear,-Bark for"lan ning, and other Articles, for which machine or mill Letters Patent of the United States were granted to James M. Miller, of the, city of Mobile, in the State of Alabama,

under date of the 20th-of J anuary,:1843,in which mill I own an interest; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact description of my improvements thereon.

In the mill as constructed by Miller the upper stone was made the runner, and through the eye of this runner the corn, bark, or other article, to be ground, was fed in by means of a funnel formed'tube-placed obliquely therein, as it was necessary to the feeding that the upper end of said funnel formed t-ube should be concentric, or nearly so, with the runner, and that the article to be ground should enter at some distance from the center. A knife, or knives, afiixed to the bed stone immediately under the lower end of the feeding tube,

with the aid of the balance rine, served to cut, or crush the corn, or other article to be acted upon, so as to convert it into pieces sufliciently small to be acted upon by the stones. A hoop surrounded the lower stone, and the lower part of the upper stone, in the ordinary manner, being placed at an equal distance from said stones in their whole circuit. To allow room for the entrance of the corn, bark, &c.,'the lower stone had an excavation near its center, extending to a distance suflicient to receive the articles fed in to be ground.

I have thus given a general detail of the manner in which the mill was constructed upon which mine is an improvement, and this I have done for the purpose of showing its defects, and the nature of the arrangements by which said defects are obviated in my mill.

In the original mill I have stated that the upper stone was the runner, the consequence of which was that it had a constant tend ency to rise, and the dropping in of a large ear of corn was almost sure to throw it off its bearings, requiring constant attention and producing much delay, while from its construction it was not capable of being weighted down. By making the lower stone the runner, this dificulty is entirely removed, and although this, by itself, is not a new featurevin mills, it becomes, in combi improvement in this mill. y A v In the accompanying drawings Figure 1,

.is a perspective view of a part of the improved mill, the covering, and the frame work-being removed the better to represent certain parts of the arrangement. Fig. 2, is a'perspective view of the lower stone, or

runner, with the knives, or crushers, in 'serted in the face thereof. Fig. 3, is a face view of the upper, or stationary stone, with its. appurtenances. A I j A, Flgs. 1,,and 3, is the upper stone, and

B, a perforation through .itata'suitable dis-' tance from its. center, into whichthe corn," or oth'er article to, beground, and crushed, T is to be fed. In the original mill the feeding was effected too near to the center, and this was unavoidable as the upper end of the feeding tube had to'be in the center, and its lowerend was necessarily at but a small distance therefrom; but by making the upper stone stationary the feeding may be at any desired distance from the center, and there may be more than one feeding opening. I make these feeding openings larger nation with other devices, an important at the bottom than at the top, in order that the articles to be ground may pass through unobstructedly.

C, C, are iron supports inserted in the edge of the upper stone, for the purpose of sustaining it, the points of which have their serve to adjust the stone to a perfect level.

I, I, Fig. 2, represent two knives, or crushers, one of which is shown separately at I. These may be from six to eight inches long on their cutting edges, according to the size of the stone. Mortises are made in the lower stone to receive them, so that their heads rest on its face, and they rise about an inch therefrom. To receive and admit of the revolving of these knives, a portion ofthe upper stone is cut away, as at a, Fig. 3, so that the stones may be brought into contact, or nearly so. The length given to these knives, or crushers, allows the feeding to take place sufficiently far from the center,

bearing on the frame work of the mill, and

and in combination with the space a, formed 7 in the upper stone prevents the accumulation of the husks about the spindle, which in the original machine was a source of perpetual inconvenience, resulting from the little centrifugal force where the crushing took place, and the excavation in the lower stone. a

Instead of using the balance rine as a part of the crushing apparatus, '1 affix a knife, or crusher D, in the upper, or stationary stone, the shank of which passes through the stone, to receive a nut d, by which the knife is made fast.- This knife is shown separately at D. When in, place its face is even with the excavation a, and the article fed in is at once in contact with it. i V

The hoop which surrounded the stones in Millers machine required the constant attention of a person to clear out the groundstuff between it andthe stones, as, unlike meal,.it will pack in this space, and actually burst the hoop; but this inconvenience I remove in the following mannerpE, E, represents the hoop as constructed by me. The inner end thereof I place nearly in contact with the stones, and gradually increase its distance therefrom, so that at its outer end E, there may be a space left of two or three inches; by this means the choking is provented, and the ground stuff will, be delivered freely through the opening H, in the ordinary way. I

F, is the bed, or floor of the mill; and G,

forth, the upper stone being stationary, and

beingprovided with a feeding opening, or openings B, and a cutter, or crusher D, situated in'th e'cavity a, made in said stone to admit the revolving knives'I, I, afiixed in the stationary stone; these parts being combined, arranged, and operating, in the manner and for the purpose set forth.

a 2. I also claim the manner of arranging the hoop E, in such a mill, in order to insure the ready delivery of the ground stuff.

, I do not'claim either of the devices in my first claim individually, but I do claim them in their combination as producing the useful results herein made known.

AMORY FISHER.

Witnesses:

HENRY A. SNOW, CHAS. Snow. 

